Carrying signs that read “No Contract – Still Working,” members of the Middlesex Education Association (MEA) walked the Bound Brook Road sidewalk near Middlesex High School.
Not far away, inside the school, a mediator met with MEA and Middlesex Board of Education reps on Monday, Jan. 27, seeking progress in the two sides’ stalled contract negotiations.
The large group of protesting union members, which some passersby mistook for a strike picket line, was fueled by dissatisfaction with the situation. The MEA’s prior contract expired last June 30 and the union has worked without a new one so far in the 2024-25 academic year. The stalemate was not broken during the recent mediation, according to social media comments by the MEA.
The MEA represents the K-12 school district’s teachers, teacher assistants, custodians, maintenance crew, secretaries, nurses, speech therapists, bus drivers and members of the child study teams.
Elsewhere in Middlesex, municipal employee unions representing police, the Department of Public Works and white collar administrative workers respectively, are also working without contracts. Their prior four-year agreements with the Borough Council expired on Dec. 31.
The town’s dissatisfied educators packed school board meetings last fall and have hinted on social media that they intend to do so again next week. But while MEA members have rallied publicly to draw attention to their plight, the municipal workers have remained quiet.
Their talks with the mayor and council seem to be amicable, with no public displays of unrest. In fact, the governing body and municipal bargaining units apparently concur that there’s a need to rein in health insurance costs. There’s been no hint of conflict at public meetings or on social media.
Some might chalk up the difference in tone to the fact that the MEA has been without a contract for more than half a year. Whereas, for the municipal units, it’s been less than two months. Unions that go without new contracts for a period of time, continue to work under the terms of their expired deals. When new contracts are reached, they receive retroactive raise amounts for the delay period.
The MEA has said it only wants a fair contract. The union has noted on Facebook that the current stalemate is the second time in seven years it has had contentious negotiations with the board.
Perhaps the definition of what is “fair” differs greatly between the two sides. Neither the MEA nor board has publicly given details of its bargaining position.
When asked by Inside – Middlesex, Mayor Jack Mikolajczyk spoke about the municipal governing body’s approach to its unresolved contracts.
“We’re communicating and have a desire to resolve them and be fair,” he said at the council’s Tuesday, Feb. 11 meeting.
Elaborating, the mayor said the governing body is attempting to navigate the complicated and costly topic of employee health insurance.
“We’re doing our best to keep it moving along and be open and forthright,” Mikolajczyk said of talks with the three bargaining units. “We’re trying to take care of things. We’re going as fast as we can, but it’s going to be hard for us to negotiate a finality without having the health insurance part set.”
An insurance broker is gathering information. Once that’s completed a proposal will be compiled and brought to the council, he added.
Mikolajczyk said health insurance and wages are the “big stuff” in terms of what has to be negotiated in the contracts.
“It’s going to be hard to be as fair as you would like to be when you’re getting hit with an extraordinary health care increase,” the mayor said, adding that it’s a statewide issue.
“We’ve been very open.,” he said. “We’ve communicated it and all the unions understand it and they’ve bought in.”
Reminder
Subscribe to Inside – Middlesex. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. It is absolutely free.
Visit Inside – Middlesex on our new Facebook page.
Inside - Middlesex 
Leave a comment